I don't think non-proliferation would be a good idea for encryption technology:
1. Depriving the the public of decent encryption does a lot of harm. If you let some people in through the backdoor you're going to let bad people in too.
This is different from nuclear bombs. It doesn't harm the public to deprive them of nuclear weapons. I like having my financial information encrypted, but I don't want a personal nuclear bomb.
2. Non-proliferation of encryption wouldn't work. The algorithms and ideas are already widespread. Every university teaches it. Millions of computers have the code already. The code and ideas can be proliferated anonymously, instantly, undetectably and cheaply.
This is different from nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs are much more complex and expensive to transport, manufacture and hide.
(I haven't mentioned AK47s, but I'd say they fall somewhere between between encryption and nuclear bombs in benefit vs harm to the public and in ease vs difficulty of non-proliferation, which is why there are more of them around than there are nuclear bombs.)
1. Depriving the the public of decent encryption does a lot of harm. If you let some people in through the backdoor you're going to let bad people in too.
This is different from nuclear bombs. It doesn't harm the public to deprive them of nuclear weapons. I like having my financial information encrypted, but I don't want a personal nuclear bomb.
2. Non-proliferation of encryption wouldn't work. The algorithms and ideas are already widespread. Every university teaches it. Millions of computers have the code already. The code and ideas can be proliferated anonymously, instantly, undetectably and cheaply.
This is different from nuclear bombs. Nuclear bombs are much more complex and expensive to transport, manufacture and hide.
(I haven't mentioned AK47s, but I'd say they fall somewhere between between encryption and nuclear bombs in benefit vs harm to the public and in ease vs difficulty of non-proliferation, which is why there are more of them around than there are nuclear bombs.)